One hit, one sniff, one injection and suddenly your life is forever changed. The way your body feels the moment of that rush; the cravings you acquire create the need to feel that rush once again and the trouble you will go through in order to feel it again. Drugs have inhabited the earth for centuries. People have been resorting to drugs for various reasons such as; medical use, recreational use or research purposes. One of the most common drugs used is cocaine. Cocaine is a drug derived from coca leafs and prepared synthetically; it is used as an illegal stimulant and sometimes as an anesthetic for animals. However, in today’s world cocaine is more commonly used as a recreational drug. Unfortunately, with the usage of illegal drugs come …show more content…
Our country can increase the taxes on every sale of cocaine. Marijuana is now legal in Colorado along with Washington State; both states have benefitted from the tax increase of marijuana. According to Tax Foundation, it states, “State officials project $67 million a year from taxes on marijuana sales. By legalizing cocaine nationwide, our country could truly benefit from the tax increase. Having those extra taxes yearly, we could better our communities by increasing free afterschool activities. Alternatively, we could use it to decreases the cost of college tuition in order for everyone to be able to afford a higher education. We can use that money to lower the cost of living, or put the money towards our school funds in private and public schools. Legalizing cocaine can benefit our community along with decrease the overcrowding in …show more content…
The legalization of cocaine would allow our nation to decrease the over population in our prison. The United States has one of the highest incarceration rate compared to anywhere else in the world. Many of those individuals incarcerated for nonviolent drug related crimes. These individuals are forced to spend a majority of their lives in prison due to the Mandatory Minimums laws. Legalizing cocaine would allow us to lower our incarceration rates, by letting those who have nonviolent drug crimes free. Cocaine would also bring in a lot of tax money to our communities. By legalizing it, we could use the extra money for our communities; to better our schools funds and further our education. Allow the legalization of cocaine can bring great benefits to our nation it can also tear it apart. With drugs comes violence. Individuals who do drugs are more likely to commit drugs because they are not in the right state of mind; they do not realize what they are doing and cannot comprehend the consequences that follow their actions. The frequent use of cocaine brings the addiction. Cocaine increases your levels of dopamine giving you that high. An individual that uses cocaine regularly will build a tolerance to the drug meaning they will need more and more of the drug to feel the same high; this is what leads to addiction. Addiction is an everyday
Cocaine is a classified ‘Schedule II’ drug, also known as “crack”, and “coke” it is a powerful drug, and addictive stimulant well known as a psychoactive substance. That comes from a plant called coca leaf that has been around since the mid-1800s and throughout the 20th century. “In the mid-1980s, addiction to the drug was seen as exaggerated or dismissed as psychological and not addiction” (Miller, Gold, Smith, 1997, p.62). In the past, cocaine’s original use was for medical purposes as local anesthetic for surgeries. Now its usage is illegal and this drug is immersed into the body through various ways. However,...
This legalization allowed anyone to smoke and possess up to an ounce of marijuana as long as you are over the age of 21. Colorado is not just making a difference for the people that need it medically but even a difference for the people that do not need it at all. Since they legalized the drug in Colorado, petty arrests have decreased from almost 6,000 yearly to 120 yearly. As an added bonus, Colorado made a profit of almost seventy million dollars in marijuana tax revenue . This money went towards improving schools and the community. The alcohol revenue earned grew and just under forty two million in the same year. 19.6 million will go to the education system for Colorado in comparison to the previous year when there was only 13.9 million going towards the education (Ryan). Not only did it create revenue for the community and school systems, it also created many open jobs for people of the area. It also helps provide information about medical marijuana and where it comes from .
Grinspoon L, Bakalar JB (1981). Coca and cocaine as medicines: an historical review. J Ethnopharmacol. 1981 Mar-May; 3(2-3):149-59.
Treatment of heavy users dwarfs both other methods by preventing 110 kilograms of cocaine from being used. This shows that other methods besides jail can have an extremely positive effect on our country. Another graph in the same article shows that although longer sentences can drastically reduce the amount of cocaine used at first, over time it becomes extremely ineffective. This is because as the penalties for the crime become higher, the drug dealers raise their price according to the risk. By increasing the jail time, we are not only locking low risk people up for a long time; we are making drug cartels even more money than they were before.
Now is not the time for the United States federal government to decriminalize or legalize illegal drugs, including marijuana. However, nor can the government continue to do nothing about the financially, economically, and socially expensive domestic drug policy it currently follows. The United States Congress should pass legislation to remove mandatory minimum penalties from drug offenses, and the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons should add in-house rehabilitation programs for its incarcerated drug offenders. These policies would increase the cost-effectiveness of current drug policy and reduce crime and drug use, and do not face the political obstacles or have the uncertain consequences of decriminalizing or legalizing drugs.
Have you ever thought about what marijuana actually does to you? Most people hear the word marijuana and see the picture perfect scenario. They picture goofy stoners smoking a joint, and laughing until there stomachs hurt. This would be the situation in a perfect world. Unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world. There are always setbacks to every thing we do. As humans evolve we believe more and more that we are all invincible. We do not think about the major affects of the different things we do recreationally. This includes marijuana. One of the biggest debates in the United States is the debate about legalizing marijuana. Many people believe that marijuana should be legalized because why not? They think that it would be beneficial
The war on drugs failed. The government spent billions of dollars fighting drug use to no avail. Statistics shown in The Boston Globe state overall drug use among children ages twelve to seventeen had actually gone up from 5.7% in 1993 to 9% in 1999(Health Central). Other statistics reveal areas of decreased usage; however, the same statistics do not show the vast numbers of addicted people abusing Methamphetamines or popular club drugs like Ecstasy. Ending drug usage is likely impossible. So why are we spending billions of dollars on a lost cause? Legalization of drugs would decrease tremendous amounts of wasted money, money that could be spent on treatment for addiction. Although many people feel that legalizing drugs would increase the amount of use, marijuana should be legalized because it will reduce massive amounts of money spent on enforcement, increase our country's revenue, and provide some relief from chronic pain caused by diseases like multiple sclerosis and others.
Many feel today we are loosing the war on drugs. People consider legalization unnecessary. They feel that it will increase the amount of drug use throughout the world. They state that in many cases, drug users who have quit quit because of trouble with the law. Legalization would eliminate the legal forces that discourage the users from using or selling drugs. They also say that by making drugs legal, the people who have never tried drugs for fear of getting caught by the law will have no reason to be afraid anymore and will become users (Potter 1998).
The use of cocaine in the United States has declined over the last twenty years while the use of crack has increased. Many people avoided the use of crack because of the harmful chemicals used in creating the drug. One of the reasons why crack became popular is because of not needing to inject the drug hence less risks of being infected by the AIDS virus. Carroll (2000) states cocaine is the most powerful stimulant of natural origin. Most users snort or inject the drug to enable a quicker “high.” Cocaine use brings on many health problems. Fatal complications occur from regular use, for example, liver damage, seizures, elevated blood pressure causing stroke, heart failure, or heart attack.
The legalization of marijuana has the potential to bring our economy back to life if it were to be legalized. There are a number of ways in which legalization could improve the economy. We could use the revenue from taxes on marijuana to provide for a better quality of life for Americans in need. Legalizing marijuana would also save us money by cutting the cost of putting someone in jail for harmless marijuana related charges that waste tax money. Also it would put more money into circulation by keeping the profits off the black market and into the legal and taxed market. With an estimated twenty-five million active marijuana smokers in America that consume nearly thirty-one million pounds of marijuana each year, we are missing out on extreme revenue that this country cannot afford to go without for much longer (Krulick).
Marijuana has more benefits of it being federally legalized than keeping it illegal. The amount of money that can be generated from the marijuana plant is astonishing and would really help America’s economy. Also the best way to prevent teenagers and adolescents from using drugs or alcohol is to inform them on the truth. By classifying marijuana a schedule one drug and cocaine a schedule two the United States government is promoting that cocaine is bad but not as bad when compared to marijuana.
The decriminalization of marijuana has been an intense debate since the end of the prohibition era. Although congress has their reasons for not legalizing marijuana, they are most likely clinging to their personal beliefs and failing to face the facts when it comes to this hot issue. Marijuana should be legalized because the cost of keeping marijuana illegal is expensive, prohibiting the use of it does not help the problem of over usage, and people deserve the freedom to use marijuana.
Marijuana continues to be one of the most used illegal drugs in the United States. Marijuana has been used for many years and at one time was legal to consume. Throughout the years, marijuana has been used for treatment of different medical conditions and has been used recreationally by people of all ages. While the use of medicinal marijuana has proven to be effective in treating medically ill patients, society continues to question its recreational use and the long term effects it will have on its users. Some feel that legalizing marijuana will only open up avenues for the use of more potent drugs, causing an increase in criminal activity. However, a number of people question why it is considered illegal being it is a naturally growing
Leading to an increase in drug experimentation by the youth and an increase in crack houses, where most laced drugs are produced. There is a reason why these drugs are illegal and it 's because of their harmful effects and the damage they cause the human body. Drug users, are often recognized as people who commit crimes, murder, rape, and other violence including burglary. With drug laws, it creates a fear in people of getting in trouble with the law and is a major reason to not use drugs. The legalization of drugs would not lower crimes rates as there would be more and more addicts as well as large black markets for drugs. Although these drug users commit crimes to obtain these drugs, it is obvious to see they would still be committing these crimes to obtain the drug even if it is legalized. Either way, a crime is still being committed they just have an easier way to steal the drug from someone. Which means the crime rates would start to rise, leading to the population of prisoners increasing, which also leads to the government spending more money on organizing jail facilities to hold these prisoners. One state in particular where marijuana is now legal, has started to come to the realization that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to leaglize this drug. Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Florida and President of SAM points out that,
Drug abuse has been a hot topic for our society due to how stimulants interfere with health, prosperity, and the lives of others in all nations. All drugs have the potential to be misapplied, whether obtained by prescription, over the counter, or illegally. Drug abuse is a despicable disease that affects many helpless people. Majority of those who are beset with this disease go untreated due to health insurance companies who neglect and discriminate this issue. As an outcome of missed opportunities of treatments, abusers become homeless, very ill, or even worst, death.